


the start

by hellodeer



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-30 23:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17232878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellodeer/pseuds/hellodeer
Summary: Sara Crispino helps her after a terrible competition.





	the start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Adrianna99](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adrianna99/gifts).



> this is my milasara exchange gift for @Adrianna99! hope you enjoy it and happy new year, addy!

When she walks into the locker room over an hour after her terrible, no good short program, she finds it empty. The light wood is visible on all of the changing stalls except hers, where her clothes still hang and her bag rests on the bench. That’s good, she tells herself, it’s what she planned: no pats on her back, no pitying looks, no words of advice. Just silence and emptiness, just her, alone with her thoughts.

She wants to tell herself it’s not even her fault, that she wasn’t even supposed to be here, that she finished off the podium at nationals and planned to use the rest of the season to practice her skating skills and triple flip, but then stupid Marina Gogoleva went and broke her foot. She wants to think it’s her first senior competition and no one expected her to do well anyway, that she’s only sixteen, that she’s on her period.

She wants to blame her coach, and he would take the blame, would say something like “I should have been more strict with your training,” but at the end of the day, she knows it’s on her and her only. So she sits on her stall, the mistakes she made through her program vivid on her mind, her hips and arms hurting and bruising from the falls. She didn’t cry in the Kiss and Cry when they announced her scores, or when her coach shook his head sadly, or when she hid out in the bathroom waiting for everybody to leave, so she refuses to cry now as she takes her skates off.

She’s got blisters on both feet. They hurt. She sighs, wiggling her toes to get some feeling back into them. Then she rummages inside her bag for wet wipes, except she can’t find them.

“Shit,” she says, looking and looking and still nothing. “Shit, shit, fuck!”

She hates it. The feeling of make up on her skin after she sweats through a program and then the sweat dries off. It’s sticky and gross and just plain _wrong_ , and the more she thinks about it the more desperate she gets.

She just _needs_ her skin to be clean—

Her heart speeds up—

She keeps looking but they’re not in her bag, where the fuck are her wet wipes, did she forget them at the hotel or maybe didn’t pack them at all—

She’s all _dirty_ —

She starts to cry. The first tear comes and then the floodgates are open and she cries, cries, cries. She cries hard and loud, sobs really, hands covering her face, snot running from her nose.

“Oh,” someone says, when she’s been like this for what feels like hours. “Are you okay?”

She turns her entire body until she’s facing the wood of the stall, shame and embarrassment stopping her tears for a moment. She takes a deep breath as the other girl approaches.

“I am fine,” she says slowly, wiping her wet face with both hands. She hopes the girl will just leave, but instead she sighs and sits on the stall to her right.

“You’re clearly not,” the girl says, her English heavy and accented. Italian, it sounds like, narrowing down the options of who it could be. There’s the sound of a zipper, fabric rustling, someone grabbing plastic. “Here.”

She really doesn’t want to, but she sighs and turns around. And it is indeed Sara Crispino, frowning at her and holding a pack of wet wipes.

My hero, she doesn’t think, but it’s a close thing. Then she starts to cry all over again.

“It’s okay,” Crispino says. “Take your time.”

She nods, because it’s all she can do. The tears don’t come so easily this time, maybe because she’s in front of somebody, maybe because she’s already cried all there was to cry. So a couple of minutes later she tries to take a few wipes from Crispino’s pack, and only then she notices that her hands are shaking.

“I cannot do it,” she says sadly, meaning the wipes, meaning something else entirely.

“May I?” Crispino asks.

She nods again. Crispino takes a wipe to her cheek, moving it from the bridge of her nose to her ear. She notices Crispino’s wrist: it’s thin and paler than the rest of her, with green veins zigzagging along. Crispino wipes her other cheek, and she notices Crispino’s hair, straight and black, wet. Crispino wipes her chin and her forehead and she notices Crispino’s lips, full and dark, and Crispino’s shoulders, broad and a little tense.

“Close your eyes,” Crispino says, and she does, and while Crispino wipes her make up off, the imagine of Crispino’s bright purple eyes burn in the darkness behind her eyelids.

After it’s all done, her face is still red from crying and from wanting to reach out and touch Crispino’s skin. So she ducks her head, clears her throat and whispers “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Crispino says. There’s a smile in her voice now, like sunshine after a rainy day. “Let’s fight for the free tomorrow, yeah?”

“Yes,” she sighs.

“By the way, you wouldn’t have happened to see a charger lost around here, would you?”

They find Crispino’s charger under a bench, a little dusty but otherwise intact. Crispino hugs her before leaving, and if her heart beats like a hammer even after the girl is gone, that’s only for her to know.


End file.
